JMJ

FOUR: FIESTA CRASHING

In the end it did not matter whether Jack shouted or not. Somehow, they lost Bootstrap for a time, but they did find a few Spaniards to take his place. Fully prepared with rifles and prowess, the soldiers soon rounded up both Jack and Barbossa and caught them after cornering them in a city dead end that the outsiders had not been prepared for. Jack and Barbossa found Bootstrap and the rest of the party soon enough, however in the cells of the city jail.

Espino translated for them that though they were going to have a trial, they were expected to be hanged for breaking into the old general's office, and for stealing horses and killing the original owners on top of that. Also one of the original owners had happened to be related to the general apparently.

"Ooo!" said Jack.

"So much for yer luck," growled Barbossa. "Now you've gotten us hanged."

"Not yet," Jack said with a smile after the soldier left the prisoners to themselves. "We're not hanging with ropes around our necks at the moment now are we? There's still plenty of time."

"Time f'r what, might I ask?" Barbossa demanded.

"Time to contemplate our deaths," suggested Ragetti a couple cells down with the rest of the party, "and say our prayers?"

"Better," said Jack. "Time to keep our heads long enough to figure out how to save our necks. It's not the first time I've been in this position."

"Oh, that's encouragin'," sneered Barbossa.

"About four times, actually," said Jack. "Isn't that right, Bootstrap?"

"Five, I thought. Unless you don't want to count that one in the Cape of Good Hope you told me about," said Bootstrap.

"This time it counts," said Jack.

"And yer point with this is?" asked Barbossa.

Jack turned to Barbossa again and stepped up to his face so barely inches were between them, and Barbossa leaned his head back just a touch while keeping solid as the stone walls around them as the sinewy branch swayed about him.

"Is it enough to say that I've been caught six times and I've got the worse luck of any pirate?" asked Jack. "Or would it be better to put it that I was caught and got away six times?"

There was a short but violent pause in which both men stared hard into each other's eyes, sizing them up as though those eyes were about to do battle with one another while the bodies remained still.

"Six?" muttered Barbossa.

He raised his brows and waited patiently for Jack to step back from him of his own accord.

"Well, give or take Cape of Good Hope," shrugged Jack turning to the bars. Then he said to Bootstrap, "You still got those keys?"

"You got the keys?" gasped Pintel in surprise.

"Well, he means the keys to Isla de Meurta, I'm sure," muttered Ragetti.

"They won't help us out!" complained Espino.

"Of course I don't have them anymore, captain," said Bootstrap ignoring his cell mates.

"But do you know where they are?" Jack pressed knowingly.

"Aye," said Bootstrap. "They're hid in the city. Before I was caught."

"Good man, William Turner," said Jack with a grin. "I can always count on you. I can't make you first mate, cuz I already promised it to Hector here, but I'll be sure to make you bo'sun next time we see the Pearl."

"If we ever see the Pearl again," sighed Pintel.

Jack straightened himself and smiled importantly. "Now, gentlemen," he said. "Don't let these walls cage your minds. We will see those black sails again, mates, because there's one thing that those Spaniards don't know about. Our advantage."

"Which is?" demanded Barbossa.

"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow? And don't any of you forget it!"

Then smiling at Barbossa who looked less comforted rather than more, Jack said with a casual wave of his hand, "You trust your captain don't you, Hector? You'll have a rich share in the treasure before you know it. I can guarantee you that. Equal shares as first mate, eh? There won't be any Spanish noose breaking your neck any time soon, mate."

#

Even had he trusted Jack in the cell, which he had not for a moment, anyone would have doubted him the moment he had the noose around his neck. And although fear may have been among the feelings Barbossa had then, anger was by far the dominant one. His wide stare could have shriveled the cavalry to dust, save that he was not staring at anyone but Jack. It was not just that he was dying. Barbossa even then was not one to shiver in the face of death, but to end his life in such a humiliating fashion as to be hanged because of the idiocy of some insane urchin that the fates laughed about when they decided to let him have the Black Pearl. Barbossa felt they must be laughing still at the utter irony of his trying to dupe the boy but ending up being duped himself without the boy even meaning to dupe him.

Now here he was about to be hanged before Jack Sparrow. They had only three official nooses, apparently. So there was one for him, one for Pintel, and one for Espino. Then the other three would have their turn.

Espino all the while was yelling in Spanish something about being innocent and having nothing to do with the other pirates around him who had kidnapped him and forced him into their service against his will, but no one was listening to him. Pintel just appeared to be in a state of shock in between the silent fury of Barbossa and the wild ranting of Espino, and he stared out ahead of himself with eyes like saucers at nothing at all.

"I never thought we would separate like this," sobbed Ragetti standing next to Bootstrap Bill against a tall, tight wooden fence. "He was like a brother, he was, old Pintel. Always lookin' out for me, you might say. The only older brother I ever had, and now I have to watch 'im hang like some filthy lowlife pirate."

"Well," said Bootstrap somewhat kindly; they were just about to die after all, "you can at least be comforted in the fact that the separation won't be a long one."

"On the contrary, if he actually gets hanged," chirped Jack with a careless shrug, "he could be dangling there for hours before he actually dies and they get to us!"

Ragetti's eyes widened with dismay whether for himself or his shipmate or both, and he gulped visibly. Also visible was the twitch beneath the wooden eye as though it pained him, and he rubbed it with his shackled hands.

"Yes, just like that," said Jack, "only that wooden eyeball will probably roll out all over the stones, and trip up the horses."

"Silencio!" barked a guard.

Jack only smiled and nodded while his bewildered older companions stared and wondered how mad their captain truly was in thinking they could escape this unless he had just been driven mad by the hopelessness of the situation.

But when the guards were no longer watching Jack directly, and the all attention was drawn to the platform stage of the ones about to be hanged it suddenly happened that Jack rammed purposely into Ragetti so that he lost his balance. They were not chained together so he fell at once onto the ground with a yelp. As soon as he landed with a rough bump onto the cobbled square, he let out a second yelp as he cried out, "Me eye!"

And just as Jack had said, though Ragetti was not yet in the noose, the wooden eye bounced along the stones out of Ragetti's reach.

Then while everyone's attention was briefly drawn to the noisy scene with Ragetti, Jack stood up to the guard nearest the post fence. In a split second the guard was on his guard, but not for what Jack actually did.

"I like your hat," he said rather abruptly as the rifle was pointed into his chest.

Whether the guard understood him or not mattered little, but the tone confused the guard if only a touch, and that was just enough to give Jack the chance to jump as hard as he could onto the man's boots. Naturally, the guard was not hurt, but he staggered enough for Jack even shackled to get a hold of the rifle after it fired harmlessly upward. Instantly the guards were after him, but Jack did not shoot anyone. He shot instead the bolt to the tall post fence behind them, and a roar erupted from inside it.

Thunder boomed, and hooves and horns charged through the now unbolted gate. Most everyone, especially the spectators, forgot all about the hanging, and did all they could to leap away to stop themselves from being sucked into an out of season running with the bulls. Most of the soldiers were not quite so frantic, but they were still plenty distracted long enough for Jack to slip away the shackle keys to free himself and snatch a sword and pistol.

Though as he turned to toss the keys to Bootstrap, he was a little startled himself to see that one particular bull had decided to rampage the platform. Pintel and Barbossa collapsed with the damaged stands, but befitting for Espino he somehow ended on top of the bull with rope still around his neck and a small chunk of wood dangling behind. In its rage the bull kicked and bunted as Espino wailed and held on only with having his shackles around one of the horns.

Pintel lifted his head and moaned painfully, but before he could rejoice in his escape or realize fully what had happened in general, the bull spun his way.

"Ack!" he cried, and he barely had time to squeeze his eyes shut.

Pain wracked his arms from the wrists outward, and for a spit second he thought for sure his hands had been clomped off, but as he opened his eyes again, he saw to his amazement that the pain had only been caused by the shackles being split in the middle where the bull had stepped on them. With disbelief in his relief he fell face-first again into the pile of rubble.

"Interesting, but effective," muttered Jack, but he was forced into his own situation then when a Spaniard came at him with a sword…

Bootstrap had caught the keys that Jack had thrown and dove into a corner behind a shed away from the din as well as forgetting all about Ragetti still scampering after his wooden eye like a miserable dog not wanting to give up his game of fetch though the whole world was coming to an end. After glancing around the corner to see that Jack was still doing alright in his climbing up the side of a collapsing balcony away from a the Spaniard, Bootstrap then made good his time with the keys. Yet in the middle of undoing his shackles, he heard a strange but familiar shrieking sound above him. He gasped to see the escaped monkey leaping down like a ghost returned for vengeance. Bootstrap could not respond quick enough to keep the monkey from snatching the keys away.

"No!" Bootstrap cried. "No, mangy animal! Come back!"

But the monkey had no intention of doing so. What he had originally intended to do with it, none could say, but the only witness to the scene was Barbossa. Once he had recovered from his rather painful fall from the platform, rope and all, Barbossa had lost no time in leaving the war zone of three: bulls, Spaniards, and escaped pirates. Having already cut the noose from his neck by now with a fruit knife from an abandoned cart a street down, he now snatched up one of those pieces of fruit and with mad determination and the knife in his belt just in case (their original weapons had naturally been confiscated long before) he made for the monkey.

Bootstrap came to meet him after bumping into a barrel and scrambling upright just in time to keep from falling on his face.

Barbossa hardly gave him a glance as he stood boldly under the roof where the monkey dangled the keys tauntingly. Without a show of anger or frustration, which no doubt the monkey wanted, Barbossa smiled wryly and offered the monkey the savory treat instead. He spoke not like a desperate man but as a master in the way he always spoke even if a touch gentler than normal.

The monkey took his time to dwell in thought about it, but Barbossa remained patient enough until the creature came close and quickly snatched the fruit away from Barbossa while dropping the keys at his feet.

"There," said Barbossa snatching up the keys and unlocking his shackles.

Bootstrap watched the monkey briefly eating away at his citrus snack quite happily, and he knew that he would have never thought of the trade. Then Barbossa shoved the keys at him.

"Now!" said Barbossa quite severely and still just as masterly as over the monkey. "Where be our keys, Master Turner?"

"Well, we should wait for Jack first," Bootstrap insisted.

"Jack's occupied at the moment, and we best not be standin' here idle if indeed he ever comes back from that sword fight. He's only one man against a Spanish troop whether he be Captain Jack Sparrow or no. Ye know the code, I've no doubt, and his pater be master of the code, and it is the way it should be with him, especially."

Bootstrap hesitated a moment, eyes faltering from the powerful gaze, and he shuffled his feet.

Then he said, "What about the others? We can't be the only ones. And I'm sure Jack will make it out of that fight. He usually does regardless of odds. I mean, I know you're not happy with him right now, but—"

"Be that as it may," said Barbossa. "We should find them in the meanwhile, don't you agree?"

Again Bootstrap hesitated and then nodded. "Aye."

Whether or not the pair of them would have gone to get the idol keys without Jack, Barbossa would have soon enough remembered that he still needed Jack to find out the location of the island despite his wrath against him. However, they were both saved from further trouble or debate when suddenly they heard the thundering hooves coming their way, and it took seconds later to see them in their storm of dust from the streets. So occupied were Barbossa and Bootstrap with getting quickly up into a narrow doorway to evade the onslaught, that they neither one of them noticed that Jack was just shoving his Spanish pursuer off of a bull, and he himself leapt for a flagpole. He missed and only grabbed the flag instead. The yelp he gave finally alerted the pair to his presence just as the last bull roared past.

They leaned out from the doorway and Jack landed rather deftly from the ripping flag considering the circumstances. At least after a stagger, he managed to appear Byronically heroic as he posed himself right afterwards.

"Seven!" declared Jack importantly. "That's seven times escaped. I told you, you ought to trust your captain, but neither of you believed in me, did you?"

"Well, I tried, Jack," Bootstrap insisted, "but you must admit that it was a really close—"

Barbossa rolled his eyes and interrupted, "Be that as it may! We still have yet to step foot on the Black Pearl and truly be called free men. They'll now be huntin' for us at our tails like hell hounds all the way back and likely out to sea. We have no time to waste, and ye still have somethin' yet to prove aside from luck and madness."

"Luck and madness?" said Jack as though wounded. "That's what you call my skill and foresight? I had an eye on that bull gate from the moment we entered the square."

But Barbossa did not want to argue the point that that was only after they had entered the square; though he certainly could have.

Instead he pressed, "Master Turner, the keys to Isla de Meurta!" He turned again to Bootstrap. "Show us the way, isn't that right? Captain?"

"In time I'll learn to forgive you, I'm sure," said Jack, strutting past, and then he said the Bootstrap, "Right then, William. What say you about finding those keys?"

"Aye, aye, this way, captain," said Bootstrap motioning them into the direction of their destination.

The monkey suddenly screamed as in agreement from where he still lingered on the roofs above them.

"What?" demanded Jack. "It escaped too?"

"And stole the keys for a while too," muttered Bootstrap.

But it was not crying in agreement, it was crying in warning of newcomers, and these newcomers stumbled loudly, panting and clanking metal at their sides as they just managed to keep themselves from falling. They collapsed into each other and against the wall.

"Don't worry, I found me eye, captain!" gasped Ragetti, the one pressed closest to the wall, and he held out the wooden bauble for the captain to see; though with his wrists still shackled, he seemed to accidently be showing it to Barbossa rather than to Jack.

Barbossa snorted with disapproval.

"An' better than that, captain!" exclaimed Pintel.

He shoved Espino off his back and let the weapons drop before Jack's feet. Then Espino did the same before Ragetti who first had to shove his wooden eye into his head.

"It was me, captain!" exclaimed Espino proudly. "I found the custom's house where they was stored! All by myself!"

"With a little help from the bull, ain't it right, Pintel?" laughed Ragetti after Bootstrap handed him the shackle keys.

Pintel laughed with a snort and a friendly jab of his elbow into Ragetti's arm. "He couldn'ta missed it unless he'd been knocked unconscious flying through the window like that."

"Lucky he didn't break his neck," added Ragetti with a final giggle.

Once Ragetti was free, Espino snatched the shackle keys away from him roughly, but Ragetti was still grinning.

"Good work, gentlemen!" Jack said with head held high. "Now, Bootstrap!"

"The idol keys," nodded Bootstrap.


NOTE: Next time will be the "three days out to sea"